by Neta Jackson
Avis dropped off a new Songs 4 Worship Gospel CD. “Keep your praise on, Jodi,” she said, breezing in and breezing out again Monday afternoon. I wanted to talk to her about the sparks that flew between Chanda and Stu the other night, but she had a staff meeting.
I skipped some of the exuberant praise songs the first day or two because they made my head throb. Some of the worship cuts were beautiful, though. I lay on the couch, stroking Wonka’s ears and absorbing the words like intra-venous nourishment. “There’s a lifting of the hands . . . a lift-ing of the hearts . . . a lifting of the eyes . . . Beyond the hills, to where our help comes from . . .” I checked the lyric sheet. Some group called Israel & New Breed. I listened to it again . . . and again. So true. “Our help comes from You . . .”
Well, Yada Yada was going to need help from God, that was for sure. I kept thinking about what happened Sunday night between Stu and Chanda. On one hand, Stu just said what the rest of us had been thinking. It was true! None of us trusted Dia’s daddy, even if he was a good dancer and wore leather. (Or maybe because he was a good dancer and wore leather!) But Stu’s hackles had really risen when Chanda defended herself about having three kids by different daddies, patting herself on the back because she didn’t choose abortion.
Something funny about it all. Almost as if—
I blinked at the notion that pushed its way to the front of my mucus-muddled head. Almost as if Stu was defending herself.
STU MUST HAVE TALKED to Florida about going to testify to the parole board, because Florida called me during the week saying she was good to go, “ . . . if Carla not still sick. Saturday after next, right? Well, she oughta be okay by then. ’Less she got that SARS or whatever they talkin’ about on the radio.”
SARS—Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It was all over the news, at least now that several cases had shown up in the U.S. A few people had come down with what seemed like the flu and died. I rushed to assure Florida. “Haven’t heard about any cases involving children . . . ahh-ahh- ahh! ’Scuse me, Flo,” and I sneezed into the big T-shirt I was wearing. Man! I needed to remember to carry one of Denny’s handkerchiefs around with me.Now I had to change my shirt. “Sorry,” I sniffled. “Hope Carla doesn’t feel as lousy as I do.”
“Maybe you the one should worry about that SARS thing, Jodi. Didn’t the doc say you runnin’ around with-out all your immunities or somethin’?”
Or something.Whatever. So far it was just a cold. I shifted the topic. “So how come you’re calling me in the middle of the day? Aren’t you at work?”
“Nah. Had to take a couple o’ sick days to stay home with Carla. Carl got him a temporary job at some ware-house—security guard or somethin’.”
“Hey, that’s good, Flo. Sorry you had to miss work, though.” I wasn’t sure Florida’s job paid for sick days.
“Huh. I think it’s temporary ’cause his job record’s not so hot. Two weeks on a job—then bam! he quits. Or gets fired. I ain’t complainin’, though, ’cause I’m praisin’ God for this time with Carla. She’s asleep right now, but you know what we been doin’? Reading books! The TV’s broke, and she threw a fit at first. Boys too. But I went to the library, an’ we been reading Amelia Bedelia an’ some old American black folktales—girl! I remember my mama tellin’ me some o’ those tales!—an’ that new chapter book about Ruby Bridges you gave her. Carla, she eatin’ it up. I . . .” Florida’s voice seemed to choke up, and she cleared her throat a couple of times. “Best thing of all, Jodi, is Carla and me all cuddled up in the bed, my arm under her head . . . an’ she been callin’ me Mama ’stead of Florida.”
“Oh, Florida.” I could hardly breathe—and this time it wasn’t because of my cold.
“He’s a mighty good God, Jodi. Mighty good. I think we gonna make it now, hard as it been. If Chris jus’ stop disappearin’ when he s’posed to be home, an’ Carl hang onto that job—oh. I hear Carla. Gotta go.” She hung up.
Well. I sure did have something new to praise God for . . . and pray about. As I tossed the cordless on the couch and shuffled toward the front door to get the mail, I caught myself begging God to make it all right for the Hickman family—everything all right. Except I knew God didn’t usually work that way, tying up all the loose ends in a pretty bow.What I’d been learning from Florida—from all the Yada Yada sisters, for that matter—was more like two steps forward, one step back, a victory here, a seeming defeat . . . but never losing sight that God was bigger than the enemy.
I stepped out on the porch long enough to dig out the mail from our rusty metal mailbox and pick up the newspaper. A front-page headline blared: SHOCK AND AWE! U.S.MILITARY PLANNING HIGH-TECHWAR ON BAGHDAD. I scanned the story with growing dread, not even realizing I was shivering on the front porch in nothing more than my oversize T-shirt and socks, till I heard Josh’s voice yell, “Why is the front door open? . . . Mom! Are you nuts? If Dad saw you out there, he’d have a fit!” My son actually grabbed the paper from me and pulled me inside like a bad puppy.
I ignored his disapproval, rifling through the usual assortment of bills and ads in the mail as I followed him into the kitchen. “Whoa! Josh! Look at this!” I held up a long official envelope with Josh’s name on it. “Your letter from UIC!” I handed it to him with a grin. “Open it!”
He shrugged, putting down the glass of orange juice he’d just poured for himself. “Okay.” He tore open the flap in a jagged tear and pulled out the contents, scanned the letter, and tossed it on the counter.
“What?” My heart flopped. Had they turned down his application? Couldn’t be! He had great grades and good test scores. I reached for the letter and read it myself as Josh wandered toward the living room, orange juice and newspaper in hand.
The first phrase leaped off the page: “We are pleased to inform you . . .” Accepted! Josh had been accepted at the University of Illinois-Champaign. “Josh!” I screeched, tearing toward the living room. “This is great! You got accepted by UIC. Congratulations!”
Josh, imbedded in the couch, barely raised his once-again-shaved-bald head from the newspaper. “Thanks. Doesn’t mean I’m going to go, though.”
31
I counted to ten—make that twenty—and said in a calm-but-really-screaming voice, “Don’t throw away a college acceptance willy-nilly, Joshua James Baxter.We need a sit-down—with Dad too.” Good grief. I used all three of his names.
“Okay.” Josh lowered his eyelids over the top of the newspaper, feigning patience. “It’s not like that’s news. I told you I might volunteer at Jesus People for a year and get a job on the side.”
“Correction. You told Mr. Douglass in our presence. Not the same thing. You—”
The cordless started ringing somewhere in the couch. Josh dug it out of the cushions. “Yo. Baxters. . . . Okay.” He held out the phone in my direction. “For you.”
I snatched the phone and mouthed at Josh, “Later.” Then I spoke into the phone, “Hello? Oh, Nony! Hi. Thanks for returning my call.” I stalked down the hall toward my bedroom and flopped on the bed, suddenly very tired. “You weren’t at Yada Yada Sunday night. Just wanted to see if the boys are any better, and how you’re doin’.”
“Oh. Thank you, Jodi.” Nony’s liquid voice had a calming effect on my ruffled spirit. “Both boys are back in school, praise Jesus.”
“You and Mark?”
“Oh, we’re fine. Mark never gets sick, healthy as a—”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant, how are you and Mark . . . you know.”
“Oh. That.” A brief pause, like a silent hiccup. “We do best not talking about it, putting it in the cupboard, I think you say.” I smiled at the phone. On the shelf, in the cup-board—same thing. “But God and I,” she continued, “we talk all the time about South Africa. Or”—she laughed nervously—“maybe I’m doing all the talking. I think God was speaking to me at the last Yada Yada meeting, though I didn’t want to listen.”
“Really? I was afraid it wasn’t what you wanted to h
ear.”
“It wasn’t. But two days ago I got an e-mail from my brother in Pietermaritzburg—maybe you heard this on the news—”
Not me.Has there been anything else on the news except the buildup of war clouds in the Middle East?
“—the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been pressuring the South African government to make reparations for victims of apartheid. Nyack says opinion from the international community is vital and is asking me—begging me!—to make the issue known here in the United States. He wants me to lobby Congress, generate letters of support, whatever I can do. The vote is coming up in Parliament in April.”
What Nony was saying began to sink in. Her country-men actually needed her here in the United States. “Oh, Nony.”
“I know. I’m a little mad at God. This isn’t the answer I wanted. Maybe Florida was right, in her own way.My deepest concern is for the orphans of AIDS—still such a burden on my heart! But maybe God has planted me here for a reason.”
“For such a time as this.” Nony would know what I was referring to, the Old Testament story of Queen Esther, whom God put in the palace of a foreign government to save her people.
“Yes,” Nony breathed, so softly I had to clamp the phone tighter to my ear in order to hear her. “For such a time as this.” And then, to my surprise, she laughed. “Better pray that the powers that be hold out the golden scepter and give me favor if I’m going to stick my neck out for a hot issue like reparations!”
I WENT BACK TO school on Thursday, and with all the catching up I needed to do, the weekend slam-dunked before Denny and I got a chance to talk to Josh about college. And even then it wasn’t satisfactory. “Look,” Josh said, in that irritating, patient way of his, “I don’t even know what I want to study in college yet. Taking a year off isn’t that big a deal. It’s not like I’m going to be brain-dead if I don’t go to UIC this fall.”
If it’s only a year, I groused to myself.
“And,” he went on, “Jesus People really needs more volunteers to help with the Cornerstone Festival this sum-mer. Sound guys, like me. There’ll be tons of sound equipment for all the big CCM bands.” He was practically drooling.
“But that’s just this summer,” I protested, but I got a two-millimeter headshake from Denny that cautioned, “Chill for now.” I thought he was dispensing parental patience, a willingness to not push the issue too fast, too soon—till I saw Denny and Josh head for the TV and turn on a game that was already in its first quarter.
The turkeys.
THE TRIP TO TESTIFY before the parole board at Lincoln Correctional was still a week away, and I kept pushing it out of my mind . . . but that third week of March was suddenly swallowed by war—real war. “Shock and Awe.” On our TV screen, the massive nighttime bombing of Baghdad looked nauseatingly like pea soup exploding—all green and flickering, big booms, enormous flashes of light, all from a distance. Josh and Denny were glued to the TV. The mood in our house tiptoed on the edges of morose fascination. All Josh said when I called everybody to supper was a snide, “I don’t suppose going to college is a big question for guys my age in Iraq right now.”
I bit my tongue. Denny prayed a heartfelt prayer at the table for all our troops in harm’s way, for the protection of innocent Iraqi civilians, for government officials faced with world-shaking decisions, for a quick end to this war, for true peace in the Middle East. Me, I was struggling with my own “shock and awe.” Shock that the United States was at war—but it was all so “over there.” So far away. So easily put out of mind . . .
Oh God! Forgive me for being so self-centered. So callous. So easily consumed with what concerns just me and mine. I don’t even know how to pray. Terrorism is so . . . insidious. So irrational. Who is the enemy? Is war the answer? Oh God! Help us! Help us all!
Only later that night, lying in bed curled into Denny’s comforting bulk, the window cracked to bring cool fresh air into our stuffy bedroom, did I realize that the day of bombs and death over there was also the first day of spring.
DENNY AND I CELEBRATED the arrival of spring on Friday evening with our first walk to the lakefront since New Year’s Day and the Polar Bear Plunge.We walked hand in hand down Lunt Avenue, past the still-bare trees along the parkway between sidewalk and street, crossed Sheridan Road, and ended up on the bike path along Lake Michigan. By then I was pooped.We found a bench facing the water, and Denny pulled me close. The temperature hung around forty-five degrees, not yet warm, and damp.
We talked about our upcoming trip to visit his parents in New York during spring break . . . about Josh wanting to take a year off before college, but we couldn’t make him go, could we? . . . talked about Hakim, who had been seeing the school counselor for five weeks and seemed more in control of his emotions but still stumped me when it came to unlocking the brilliance inside . . . did a few updates on Yada Yada: Nony becoming a political activist for reparations, hoo boy! . . . Florida redeem-ing Carla’s stay-at-home illness by reading books and more books . . . Carl Hickman doing temp work as a security guard . . .
But even as we chatted, why did I have the feeling that Denny and I hadn’t talked about anything real and personal—soul deep—since . . . since Amanda’s quinceañera? Even then, I was mostly an observer to his daddy’s heart. How did he feel about ending up as an assistant coach this year—again—when he had more experience than the head coach and athletic director at West Rogers High combined? What had kneeling beside MaDear’s wheel-chair last Christmas and asking forgiveness for the sins against her, taking them on his own soul, done to this man’s heart? He rarely mentioned it, except to be glad that Adele had come back to Yada Yada. He hadn’t said much about testifying at Becky Wallace’s parole hearing either—just agreed to go. He just . . . plugged on. Did his job. Put up with me and all the Yada Yadas. Volunteered one Saturday a month for Uptown’s homeless outreach. Loved our kids. Faithful, faithful, faithful . . .
“Denny?” I snuggled closer under the curve of his arm as the lights of the city blinked on all along the shoreline, dressing up the gray lapping water and flat gray sky with sequins of light. “What do you really think about testify-ing at Becky Wallace’s parole hearing tomorrow?”
“Funny you should ask that . . . you cold?” Denny pulled me even closer, wrapping both arms around me.
Yes, I was shivering inside my jacket and wishing I’d worn a hat, but heck, who cared? I could feel the rough stubble on Denny’s cheek against my face, the faint leathery smell of his aftershave, and he was going to open up his real thoughts. “I’m okay. Funny, why?”
“Remember Pastor Clark’s sermon on the story of Ruth a couple of Sundays ago?”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “I’ve always wondered why couples use that ‘your people shall be my people’ bit at weddings, when it was said by a young woman to an older woman.”
Denny cleared his throat. “Uh . . . right. But I was thinking about Boaz, the ‘kinsman redeemer.’ Here’s Ruth, this foreigner, this young widow, this distant relative by marriage, who suddenly drops into Boaz’s life and ends up being his responsibility. By happenstance. He had a choice to marry her or not; nothing was automatic. If he hadn’t taken action, Ruth would have remained a foreigner, an outcast, a childless widow, just marking time and space . . .”
I leaned away from Denny’s arm and twisted so I could look at him. I almost blurted, “We’re not ‘kinsmen’ to Becky Wallace!” But in a flash of understanding, I knew what he was trying to say. Becky Wallace had dropped into our lives—kind of like Ruth and Naomi dropping back into Boaz’s life after years in a “far country”—and we had a choice: we could do nothing and let consequences take their natural course, or we could act as her “kinsmen redeemers,” helping her to build a new life. At least give it a try.
I shivered. Or shuddered.
BUT THERE WE WERE the next morning at eleven straight up, four of us from the Yada Yada Prayer Group—Hoshi, Stu, Florida, and me—plus Denny, sit-ting in the hallway outside
a conference room at Lincoln Correctional Center after a three-hour drive in a foggy drizzle worthy of the Northwest rain forest. We talked and prayed and sang on the way down, feeling hopeful. Denny shared his thoughts that maybe God had called us to be kinsmen redeemers for one ex-junkie. But Florida brought us down to earth as we waited for our turn with the parole board. “Wonder what they gonna think when we walk in?” she hissed. “Denny an’ the Four Floozies or somethin’? Ha.”
I giggled nervously. Indeed.We made up an unlikely bunch. A svelte university student from Japan . . . a short, wiry black woman with a big smile and a long scar still evident between her cheekbone and ear . . . a DCFS social worker with dark roots under blonde hair that was a tad too long and straight for someone in her midthirties . . . a third-grade teacher and a high school coach, married with teenagers and not a clue how the penal system worked.
At 11:05, the door opened and a female security guard motioned us inside. The room was small, with an oblong conference table. Three people sat along one side—one man and two women. All white. The man nodded at us and motioned to the three empty chairs along the other side of the table. “Uh, we’ll get a couple more chairs.We didn’t know there would be five of you.”
The chairs arrived; we sat. For several moments, no one spoke as the three parole board members shuffled through some pages in front of them, as though they were reading or rereading them.We waited.
“An unusual request.” One of the women broke the awkward silence, peering over her half-moon bifocal glasses at us. “I presume all of you signed this letter”—she waved a copy of Stu’s letter with our signatures on it—“and were victims of the prisoner in question. Uh”—she squinted at a folder in front of her—“Becky Wallace.”
Our heads bobbed. Denny cleared his throat. “That’s right.”
The woman leaned back in her chair, still peering at us over the top of her glasses, a gold chain snapped to each earpiece and circling the back of her neck in case they dived off her nose. She looked like a spinster librarian, may all spinsters and librarians the world over forgive me. The man, middle-aged, flabby chin, balding forehead, his suit a size too small—now, anyway—tapped a pencil on the table in irritating staccato. The other woman—younger, maybe thirties, with straight, thin, brown hair—looked at us up and down the row as though sorting us into different cubbyholes.